R.L. Wing writes the line “They produce but do not possess…”. I feel this attitude can be freeing for those of us who react to both success and failure in ways that set up exhilaration and depression. To be able to function and produce and move on is better than assigning labels and valuating the things we do. The best laid plans and the vagaries of luck are not staples for our well being, they are detours from it. Letting fate’s hand cloud or blind our reality puts someone or something else in charge. It is better to feel blessed with all of life’s lessons than to search through our day, throwing out the distasteful and challenging moments while still trying to cling to those that bring us temporary good fortune.

In Wing’s commentary on this verse, he speaks clearly about polarity in cliched physics terms: every action has its complementary reaction. Each of us who rides the rocket of rapture with success needs to always remember that the artificial fuel will soon burn out and a crash comes just as quickly as the sudden launch. Every ascent has a descent in its future. That being said, the opposite is also true.

Every descent has an ascent its future. Things can only get so bad before they get better. If there is a top, there is surely a bottom. One can control one’s environment, according to R.L., by avoiding extremes. Extremes of good are even frowned upon. Possession of one’s ideas and work is also a path that will take one, eventually, down. Great expectations are a burden one does not need. Nature gives credit to those who never try to take it and therefore, they always have it.